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A North Side man who met a Columbus teenage girl on a vampire-oriented website has been
sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for forcing the girl to have sex with him.

Randall V. Roberts, 42, of Hazelwood Road, was sentenced on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge
Michael H. Watson.

Roberts pleaded guilty in June to one count of coercing a minor for sex. He forced the girl
to perform oral sex on him at least seven times over six months and then threatened to expose her
actions if she didn’t continue meeting him.

Roberts will be on 15 years of supervised release after he gets out of prison and will be
required to register as a sex offender. Before he was arrested, he ran a landscaping and lawn-care
business and worked at several central Ohio restaurants.

The girl’s stepfather learned about the sex acts from text messages on her cellphone. He
notified police, and members of the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force
investigated.

Pretending to be the teen, they communicated with Roberts via text messages and arrested him
after he set up a meeting to have sex with her in his car at an East Side church parking lot on May
16.

Investigators found 39 child-pornography videos on his computer hard drive as well as two
sexually explicit photographs of the victim.

“Randy recognizes that his actions were terribly wrong,” the defendant’s sentencing
memorandum said. “He plans to serve his sentence and address his substance-abuse and mental-health
issues.”